The Best Way To Explore Denali National Park On A Tight Budget

A visit to Alaska's wild Denali National Park and Preserve is a rare opportunity to see nature in its true state. This enormous preserve is more than six million acres — a staggering size larger than the entire state of New Hampshire. While you can absolutely hike through the wilderness at Denali, if you want a chance to see more than the area closest to the park entrance, you're going to need a ride deeper into the preserve. There's only one road through the park, and the majority of it is only open to buses. There are tour buses that take you along this route, but if you're on a budget, you might want to consider one of the cheaper alternatives: a non-narrated transit bus or a free shuttle bus.

From a bus traveling along the Denali Park Road, you have the opportunity to see over the dwarf birch and wild blueberry which turn into a vibrant carpet of gold and scarlet in the fall. From your high vantage point, you might see dall sheep effortlessly climbing up the mountains, moose grazing, or bears running along river beds. On the narrated tour buses, you'll get to see it all from the comfort of the vehicle while listening to a naturalist describe what you're seeing. These tours are between 4 hours and 30 minutes and 5 hours and 30 minutes, and stop periodically at bathrooms and for wildlife sightings. A ticket for one costs between $116.25 and $144 per person. If that's a little outside your price range, though, you have other options for exploring Denali.

If tour buses are a little outside your trip's budget, you should definitely consider taking a transit bus instead. These dark green buses will take you on the exact same route as the tour buses, stopping at all the same spots, as well as whenever you see some exciting wildlife. Securing a spot on one of these buses only costs $33.25. The only real difference is that the drivers of these buses are not required to give you any kind of formal tour or share information about the park (although many drivers are knowledgeable about the park and the animals that live there, and will be able to answer questions.)

Maybe best of all, you don't have to stay on the bus if you don't want to. Denali is one of the best U.S. National Parks for avoiding crowds and admiring wildlife while fully immersing yourself in nature, and these buses give you the option to walk around the preserve at your own pace whenever and wherever you would like. If you're interested in the plentiful hiking opportunities in Denali National Park and Preserve, you can ask the driver to let you off anywhere and simply walk along the road — or away from it if you're up for the challenge. When you're ready to go back, all you have to do is flag down any other dark green bus by waving your arms, and as long as they have a seat for you, they'll pull over and pick you up.

Uness it's Martin Luther King Jr. Day or you have an America the Beautiful National Park Pass, you may not be able to get into this national park for free and avoid paying the $15 per person entrance fee. However, that could be the only money you spend at Denali, if you're willing to change your itinerary. In the park's popular summer months, there are shuttle buses that carry visitors around the park for free.

The Riley Creek Loop Shuttle will get you around the park's facilities, but unless you want to go to the Horseshoe Lake Trailhead it won't do much to help you explore the park. The Savage River Shuttle runs about two hours in total, so you will get to see some of the park from the road, and it's the perfect way to get to the few actual marked trails in the park. Even if you are paying for a guided tour bus, you probably won't want to miss the free Sled Dog Demonstration Shuttle, which takes you from the Denali Visitor Center to the kennels where the park's dogs live. There, you can spend half an hour watching the huskies who live at Denali practice pulling sleds and explore the kennels where these beautiful dogs live.